Best Summer Salad Vegetables

During the warm and sultry days of summer, our appetites decrease and it's more important than ever to meet our daily nutrition requirements. Salads are an easy way to combine grains, fruits and meats in one dish, with perhaps some tomatoes, sweet onions, and cucumbers etc. Salads are a great way of adding variety to our meals, keeping healthy, or sometimes just using up what we have in the fridge. Here are some of the vegetables that you should use for salads in summer:

• Onion: An important vegetable that is popular across classes and continents. It has antibacterial properties and also acts a blood detoxifier. It is a good vegetable to bring down fever, cholesterol level and phlegm. The Egyptians had a regular dose of onion and garlic. Onion-ginger juice is good for asthmatics. Onions are also natural and gentle blood thinners and they are also good for liver disorders. Many people refrain from eating onions due to the bad breath but one can chew mint (pudina) leaves or cardamom (elaichi) after eating onions to prevent bad breath and yet enjoy the goodness of onions.

• Cucumber (kheera): A staple vegetable for salad, it has historical evidence of consumption for many centuries. It is a rich source of minerals and is highly alkaline in nature making it an ideal summer food. It is a good source of potassium which is good for lowering the blood pressure in hypertensives. Cucumber is a natural diuretic and an effective remedy for ulcer patients.

• Radish (mooli): It contains vitamin C, sodium and calcium and is very good for kapha constitution. Traditionally, patients with a weak liver or jaundice were prescribed a juice of this vegetable. Eating the leaves of the radish along with it, in salad form, takes away the pungent flavor of the radish.

• Tomatoes: They are an excellent source of vitamins A and C and a good source of potassium. Avoid refrigerating them if possible, as it stops the ripening process. Very ripe tomatoes are best raw. They are delicious with basil (tulsi), olive oil, salt, and pepper.

• Bell peppers (shimla mirch): Green capsicum, red bell peppers are great sources of vitamin C and are good for all constitutions.

Chilled salads are refreshing on hot days, and it's nice to have some good recipes that don't require heating up the kitchen with the stove especially with energy prices sky high. There are many variations of a classic vegetable salad and you will find numerous recipes on the internet. Try out the basic recipe and then add your own touches!